I'll tell you how. It happened in little tiny steps, a series of compromises, none so big as to cause great alarm, but each one making the next seem that little bit less of a big deal. It was done by practical, pragmatic people, who understood that you can't make the perfect the enemy of the good, you have to put water into your wine, half a loaf is better than none.
And of course they were right. The Conservatives are now in government, where they have the privilege of outspending the Liberals. They have won power, at the price of conservatism. They have bested the Liberals, but defeated themselves.
There is literally nothing left. Privatization, tax cuts, tax reform, EI reform, CPP reform, democratic reform: all gone, barely even remembered. Now its subsidies for "the arts" and subsidies for Quebec aerospace firms and restored funding for Status of Women Canada -- even money for provincial daycare programs (wasn't the last election fought over that?)
And where once there was a party that might criticize the worst of these, round about midnight, when it had had a drink or two, now that party is doing it, while the other parties slam it around the clock for not doing more.
3/21/2007
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This ornery is high comedy.
Mr. Coyne came of age politically in a time where neo-liberal policies were ascendent around the globe. That age is now over, empirical evidence illustrates, as much as some wish it were not so.
Instead, we are stuck with a government that is investing in all of the wrong areas, for all of the wrong reasons, at exactly the wrong time. Harper's speech over the weekend could have been cribbed from Nixon's Silent Majority spiel. We have a government that is mangerial, technocratic in nature that insists on accounting for every nickel-and-dime we might earn in the next ten years in a way that would make idealists who believe in government cringe and managerial types nod happy.
A dark time.
I prefer high dudgeon but ornery is good too, anon.
As a card carrying member of the party let me say i'm with you on this one and shattered in my disappointment. the realist power mongers out there are saying "just wait until we get a majority" then we can fix everything. But that's a load because then you have to keep the majority so the pressure to spend and appease will still be there. And you have the media whose anti-conservative animus makes their memory lengthen a bit and won't let you get away with a liberal budget near the end of your term to soften your image. Then there are the other realists out there who talk of the need to slowly wean Cdns of of 30 years of Trudeaupia, but that's baloney too, since there is almost no weaning at all in this budget. $310 for a family with kids is ridiculous and almost the sum total of tax relief here. An insult. No one thought this budget would be the equivalent of an NCC/CTF whitepaper on taxation but it is bloated with pandering, vote buying and incremental spending lunacy. If the goal is to destroy the Bloc's raison detre then fine. If it is to undermine Dion then fine. But it could have easily done that and thrown a few bones to the fiscal conservatives in the party and avoided larding it up with targeted idiocy like the lacrosse subsidy and ecoCar fiasco.
Final word overall on CPC performance to date. Still better that the Liberal sanctimony but sinking fast.
the only thing left to do is fend for ourselves, make so much money that even after the government takes what it can, it leaves so much left that one is still massively sufficient. i see no hope in waiting for a government to save us from government.
I too am a card carrying Conservative and one who has donated money (not a lot - $200 to $500 a year) to the cause.
I agree with everything Matt has said. I am profoundly disappointed. My feeling at this time is to stop my financial support and to refrain from voting in the next election. If I don't vote it will be the first Federal Election since I was eligible (1969) that I have not voted...
I may change my mind but at this time it's just ... despair ...
Sigh.
Another card carrier here. I'm done giving money. I'm done knocking on doors and pounding lawn signs. I wanted a conservative Prime Minister and we got this...
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The plain fact is that nobody gives a goddam about fiscal conservatism, except a handfulof flat-taxing cranks; we are probably about twice as numerous as gays - and about a tenth as influential. In fact the broad majority of the population is probably only dimly aware that there is such a doctrine at all, and they sure don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. So it is no surprise that our now consummately pragmatic PM is catering to the vote-rich majority.
On the other hand, all is not lost. Unpopular as FC is, it has been the winning side for several decades now: Inflation has been tamed, deficit spending stopped, tax rises held in check, high marginal rates lowered, and utterly kooky but once commonplace notions about industrial planning and even nationalizing industry discarded in the rubbish bin of history.
Further the mobile nature of capital and increased international competition give every reason to think that in time trade impediments and excessive corporate taxes will have to be lowered. A truly FC party is never going to win in Canada - or most other developed nations. But here and abroad more sensible policies will (eventually) have to - and will - be implemented, whether they are popular or not.
Funny. They called me on Saturday asking for money. I told them talk to me after Monday, as I was worried about this. Clearly my worries were not unfounded. After this fiscal plan many of you may no longer be the fierce loyal partisans that this party has enjoyed for years, but the questions is will you vote against them? If you're in this tent I assume the NDP is out of the question, so you are left with Dion? Not even Ignatieff, but DION. Dispair, you won the election, then defeated yourselves, and left yourselves with no plan b other than throwing your hands in the air and staying home on election day.
Just a minute here. Let's get some perspective. Yes, its far from perfect, but we're actually lamenting the lack of tax decreases, not increases. That's progress. Also, the PM has shown a remarkable grasp of strategy in his time in the limelight. I think that it may well be the case that he realizes that the transformation to FC must be done over a longer time frame. He needs the trust of a %age of the 64% who don't support him. I don't think he wants a majority for his own sake. I think that there is an agenda (don't say hidden) and he needs to bring the electorate along with him to see the benefits of FC. But he can't do that until he establishes a climate of trust in him. I blame the Libs for this. They have so corrupted the process that you have to play it their way to be in the game.
A lot depends on what you think those early positions were really about. Yes, the early Reform movement was fairly openly anti-Quebec. Now its offspring has begun to openly court Quebec. This is not really such a big change. The original position was never about any high-minded principle--it was about pandering.
Had Harper tabled a real conservative budget with, say, a 1% overall cut in spending, he would immediately be defeated in the house and would lose the next election. The Premiers, the "victim groups", and the left-leaning media are already hostile towards him and would be doubly so if he actually did something conservative.
We live in a democracy and the bottom line is that a clear majority of Canadians embrace statism, or rather the tangible benefits it affords them. Harper has a minority government and a frothing opposition and media ready to defeat him. I remind you he only won the last election by 10,000-15,000 votes under "perfect storm" circumstances.
Politics is indeed the art of the possible, and under the circumstances it was *impossible* for Harper to deliver a conservative budget, not without ending up on the pogey line before the snow melts. Like Joe Clark.
Socialism is not an ideology, it is a pyramid scheme. This budget is but another step towards the inevitable collapse of the welfare state, a scam that has been running since before Harper was born.
Ah, the stormy raging of the disappointed fans of "conservative" ideology...fascinating... and here I am, a clueless spectator, wondering: Who are these people, what do they believe, exactly, and where did they snaffle up that belief system? Please enlighten me. Two set of questions I pose to Andrew's loyal blogfans:
* What is it that "Conservatives" actually want to conserve? Please be specific.
* "Smaller government" and "lower taxes" seem to be mantras that people who self-identify as "Conservatives" repeat a lot. How small, and how low? What parts of the federal budget would you cut (please be quantitative and specific in your answers: X billions from Program Y, etc.)...and what is the right level of taxation, as a percentage of GDP? (Bonus points if you know what the current level of taxation is -- i.e. what all levels of government in aggregate currently spend, as a % of GDP -- without looking it up on Wikipedia. And if you don't know how much it is, how or why are you so sure it's too much -- ?)
I hope some of you may take a few moments to enlighten my clueless non-ideological self.